Hi all: I'm shopping around for a board upgrade from my dying Behringer MX-2642A. I'm looking for a rack mount solution (don't have room for a full-blown console) preferably the most flexible and clean for under $1,000. Not a lot to ask, eh? lol? Thought so.
Anyway, I've been looking at the Allen and Heath Mix Wizard 316:2, which by all means looks like a good board. It's got 16 mono channels with inserts and direct outs on every strip (nice and flexible there), six aux sends, two stereo effects returns, etc, and built-in effects which I probably won't use much since I've got two outboard effects processors (a Digitech Quad IV and a Boss VF-1). I've been looking at so many boards now that I've gotten a bit confused, and I don't think this board has any stereo subgroups other than the main mix, which also has a set of inserts. This I do like about my current board. I can deal with using aux sends as busses when the need exists as all the channels are also mono, thus no imaging will be lost. I got used to that with my old crappy Alesis 1622. This will be particularly nice while using a patch bay. However, my biggest concern about this board is that, unless I'm missing something, there doesn't seem to be a control room out, other than the headphone jack on the front of the board. This could be a bit blah. Also, as there only seems to be one main mix with two outputs sets and apparently no control room outs other than the phone jack, I would be forced to rout my Hafler TA-1100 through a set of aux sends, which rather defeats the point of my getting this board pretty successfully. I'm already maxed out with my mx-2642A. I have no free aux sends, free bus outs or free channels, and the stupid effects sends are not routable to anything other than the main mix, which is really annoying! The individual sends are routable to the PFL matrix, which is nice at times, but not the effects returns. Oh no! In all other respects though, I like the way this board looks. Has anyone here had any experience with this particular board, and if so, am I right about the lack of a control room output? I hope I'm not! If so, does anyone have another suggestion as to what I could get that fits this particularly blah budget and space constraint? I have considered a digital solution like the Behringer DDX3216, but, without buying expansion cards anyway, there are only four stereo busses which can be used as either subgroups or aux sends. I would run out of outputs before even using any of my outboard effects stuff without doing a lot of ghetto splitting and such. I suppose I could go that rout and get some of the analog I/O expansion, or a digital expansion module and a stand-alone D/A converter... Then, there's the more affordable Behringer Xenyx line which looks OK, but isn't really a big improvement over my current MX-2642A other than that there is an internal effects processor, a USB interface, and the effects returns are routable. Supposedly, it also has better preamps and an improved EQ as well, but I don't know about that. Most of the boards in this price range are either low-end desks (which I wouldn't have a problem with if I had more space to work with), or rack mount deals with some stupid limitation that I don't like much. For example, the Yamaha MG stuff looks OK, but they have no bus inserts. At the moment, I have an EQ and compressor inserted into the main mix on my board, which is rather nice for some of the live broadcasting stuff I do, as well as having compressors and gates inserted into mic channels and such, so I'd rather not lose that functionality. I know I could ditch some of the outboard gear, particularly the EQ's and compressors, if I went with a digital system, but I'd definitely not want to replace my effects units with in-built stuff. Most boards I've seen just don't cut it for on-board effects. Yes, I have software effects all day, but sometimes it's really nice to have hardware. There's just something about it, ya know? Sorry for rambling, and thanks for any help and/or suggestions any of you may have. -- -- Patrick Perdue (MCP, CNA) KE4DYI Greensboro, NC website: http://www.pdaudio.net home: +1(828)221-2971 Mobile phone and SMS: +1(336)509-5583 e-mail and .net messenger: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> skype: Borris -------------------- For anything related to the yamaha motif line of keyboards and modules, subscribe to the motif-help mailing list by sending a blank message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Composition of this message started on Thursday, April 13, 2006 at 12:19 AM EDT. _______________________________________________ PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... http://www.pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This list is a service of MosenExplosion.com. To see what other lists we offer, visit us on the web at http://www.MosenExplosion.com
